Bargain Center: discussion, gossip, etc.

[Kalamata Kid]

^^^
Tempted to get BYOM and Triad for $49.99.
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... undle.html
But need to spend an additional $49.01 to make the $149 total.
Ah, what to do to feed my GAS.

[profaudio]

^^^
Tempted to get BYOM and Triad for $50
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... undle.html
But need to spend an additional $49.01
Ah, what to do to feed my GAS.

Same here! Others have recommended Thorn so I went with that

[Insanelysane]

What is the consensus on Black Rooster Audio products? I heard that their licenses were NFRs, did they ever fix that?

TLDR: Don't plan on reselling, but install on as many systems as you like.

Have yet to form an opinion on the audio quality of the Black Roosters I picked up this month, as I just installed them. But in my research, they seem to be well regarded sonically. They have nice clean interfaces. Picked up the VLA-3A earlier this month and yesterday VPRE-73. I took a flyer on them at these prices, even if they are NFR. There are various googleable threads stating resale is not possible.

Black Rooster follows the monolithic download model. There is no individual download package per plugin. You get all their plugins if you get one. They aren't the only vendor to do this. I know why they do it. I do not personally believe it's efficient, and I think they turn off as many potential customers as they upsell their existing base by doing it. Does make it easy to demo their other plugins. Their installer, will allow you to choose which ones to install on the system, so there is that.

They use a light Waveshell type of launcher setup. Can't speak for the Windows side, but on a Mac, a single BlackRooster VST and/or AU goes into your plugins folder, and the "bundles" are installed into /Applications/Black Rooster Audio/ ... once installed, their rooster shell intermediates the individual plugin bundles to your DAW.

A single license key is generated on their customer website and used to unlock plugins only once when you first launch them in your DAW. Having installed 2 of their plugins separately I noticed a few things. The license key changed after I added VPRE-73. My supposition is that they are using some simple form of blockchain to encode licensing on a per plugin basis into a single key.

Black Rooster plugins will run just fine on a non networked system. Unlike some other vendors, they do not phone home. I observed no web activity. They do everything local to the system and the single key issued from their customer website appears to be capable of unlocking any variety of plugins you have licensed from their stable. Conceptually that's a nifty trick on their part. Also notably, after I installed VPRE-73, the previously installed VLA-3A did not require additional license activation, but VPRE-73 did on first use. So apparently in their world, once licensed, always licensed (at least on the same system), but that's true of a lot of these license key schemes. In other words, there is no license revocation if a plugin is installed and working. Who knows how this behaves after a major OS upgrade or system migration. Given they don't phone home, there appears to be no technical limit to the number of systems that their plugins can be restricted to. I found nothing in their ToS or FAQ that states any licensing restriction, so presumably there is no limit. That's an upside (at least compared to Waves).

I might be getting some of it wrong, and surely I am. But it appears that Black Rooster have concocted a system that is not particularly amenable to license transfers. If they are using a form of blockchain to encode eligibility into a single multi-plugin license key, there's no reason they couldn't generate a new license that removes a plugin which was transferred and update all parties licenses appropriately. I surmise a technical barrier along these lines, that they can't revoke the previous license that was issued granting access to the plugins that were transferred. Even though they can issue me a new key, nothing besides the concept of being honorable prevents me from continuing to use the old key that unlocked the plugin I just sold.

Really interesting, thanks for the elaborate licensing observation.

NFR is a big one. It can bite hard especially if you haven't considered it - make sure you are also aware of companies that, while not NFR, charge a fortune for the transfer fee. It really messes you up in terms of value of resale. Acustica Audio pretty much lock you in if you bought anything of theirs on sale, it can be 100 euro license transfer fee!

[jezjez]

^^^
Tempted to get BYOM and Triad for $50
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... undle.html
But need to spend an additional $49.01
Ah, what to do to feed my GAS.

Same here! Others have recommended Thorn so I went with that

Im considering Phil's Cascade + DSM-3 for $75 hmm

[mgw38]

I surmise a technical barrier along these lines, that they can't revoke the previous license that was issued granting access to the plugins that were transferred. Even though they can issue me a new key, nothing besides the concept of being honorable prevents me from continuing to use the old key that unlocked the plugin I just sold.

But that is true for any serial key based licensing system that does not call home.

[profaudio]

^^^
Tempted to get BYOM and Triad for $50
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... undle.html
But need to spend an additional $49.01
Ah, what to do to feed my GAS.

Same here! Others have recommended Thorn so I went with that

Im considering Phil's Cascade + DSM-3 for $75 hmm

Good shout! After some research DSM-3 looked like a great addition to the toolbox, offering something different. Cheers!

[WatchTheGuitar]

Anyone familiar with both T-RackS and Plugin Alliance and can point out any units that are considerably better in the PA sale than in T-RackS (I have the latest full set of that)?
I'm going to get the BYOME/Triad bundle anyway, but specifically after something I can add to tracks to colour them in different ways and with some degree of in built 'drift' that gives them a little more life. Any recommendations?

Edit: Actually after reading up on Phil's Cascade it may offer some of that colour I was after.

[sqigls]

check out the Audio Assault sale, their saturation plugins are great, and for $5 each, total no-brainer as they say. Use the code XMAS for $5 off

[random_id]

I surmise a technical barrier along these lines, that they can't revoke the previous license that was issued granting access to the plugins that were transferred. Even though they can issue me a new key, nothing besides the concept of being honorable prevents me from continuing to use the old key that unlocked the plugin I just sold.

But that is true for any serial key based licensing system that does not call home.

Just an FYI, keys that were sold can be "blacklisted" in future plugin versions. I know some developers do this. As they update plugins, lists of blocked serials are added into the code.

[WatchTheGuitar]

check out the Audio Assault sale, their saturation plugins are great, and for $5 each, total no-brainer as they say. Use the code XMAS for $5 off

Nice tip - just demoed the Head Crusher and it's pretty fun. Must admit I'd seen Audio Assault a load of times and been put off by the heavy metalness of the site and names, but their plugins seem to be useful for everyone.

[Ploki]

Even though they can issue me a new key, nothing besides the concept of being honorable prevents me from continuing to use the old key that unlocked the plugin I just sold.

you're still in a breach of license tho, and this is exactly the same as just using a cracked version or key-gen generator.

I sold my Cypher2 license and it continue to work and even be updated through the FXPansion license manager, but frankly, i could just use a crack from any other perspective.

[commodore]

Bought a waves license from musicians friend, but yet to receive it since purchasing last night. Maybe they figured out they shouldn't be taking another %50 off.. lol

[seangm]

check out the Audio Assault sale, their saturation plugins are great, and for $5 each, total no-brainer as they say. Use the code XMAS for $5 off

All plugins are $5 right now. The XMAS code doesn't work it says "Invalid Discount Code". Would have been a free plugin with $5 off so I don't blame them lol.

[Gamma-UT]

The Audio Assault "XMAS" code is actually for a BOGOF:

All our plug-ins and add-ons are only $5! 3 DAYS REMAINING!!

And if you use the code XMAS you can get the price off 1 knocked off!

Or order in pairs to get a bunch of em!

To all of those who already have our stuff, please spread the word and thank you very much!!

The email arrived late yesterday US time (they are in Mexico I think), so the code should be good until Tuesday. It was just a one-day sale on Xmas Day, then they extended it.

[Harry_HH]

So they changed the XMAS to ***OF